What Kind Of Love
by Neon Daisies
Summary: The bond between parent and child. What would that look like in the Hellsing universe? AlucardxOC
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **I don't own. I don't make money. I simply manipulate. That's the most any fanfic writer can say I think. Kouta Hirano created the world that I'm playing in.

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She never feared me the way she was supposed to. Inspiring overt fear in others is not just something I am used to, it is my birthright. No matter how strong, there has yet to be a female who has been able to face me without fear in her eyes. 

But then, I suppose she would say that lack of fear is _her_ birthright.

_Would_ say? I can read her mind. She _does_ think that.

You should have seen her when she was younger. No matter how bloodied I was by a night of fighting and/or feeding, she would _run_ if she saw me. Not away as any sane being would, but towards me. Some well-intentioned fool tried to scoop her up out of harm's way once. She hissed her displeasure as she always has – and likely always will despite the lectures she's been given. It was a miscalculation on her part; due to her missing front teeth she spit all over the man.

But the spirit the little hellcat showed during her punishment..._that_ was something to see.

Then one day she was seventeen instead of seven and she started fearing me for all the wrong reasons. As if I cared about the pale imitation of a love bite concealed under a turtleneck or a beer drunk to satisfy a dare. As if that was the worst her world had to offer.

_"Wait until she's eighteen,"_ I was told said time after time. _"Then she'll be old enough to know about the monsters that **really** go bump in the night. Then she'll be old enough to learn how to fight them."_ As if she weren't descended from monsters herself. As if she'd ever needed an excuse to exercise her powers.

Horny young men were the least of my worries.

I waited, though not out of any sense of duty. I waited because I enjoyed the nights when she'd seek me out. _"I'm as much a part of Hellsing as any of the men! **More **so. I want to fight." _

_ "Go ask your mother."_ Her frustration was sweet to feed on where her fear was pathetically weak.

Eighteen was too late. Apparently the females in this household are too dried up to remember what eighteen was like. By eighteen she knew everything and could do anything and saw no reason to stay.

_Screw training. If the No Life King trained himself, then so can I._

She has always put too much faith in her blood and the few parlor tricks she's puzzled out for herself. The parlor tricks might scare away boys intent on a quick backseat screw, but once she stepped out from under my shadow that would have been the least of _her_ worries.

"Alucard. Did you hear me? We've had word of her."

We've constantly had word of her. The incompetent fools out in the field are the ones who try to entrap her before she's prepared to play nicely. It's no wonder that she keeps running. That she continues to be in danger – and to _be_ a danger – is hardly my fault. But what can I do in the end? She is still of me, of my blood. Hissing and spitting will only keep enemies at bay for so long and I would know if she'd learned how to do anything else. "Where?"

"Prague. Apparently she's still tinkering with her theory linking freaks and golems." Cigar smoke rises into the night air.

Apparently. "Your wit remains as sharp as ever."

The words might hint at insolence, but there's not enough for her to rebuke me for. How forgiving my master becomes when young are involved. Not even she can escape all the frailties peculiar to mortals…

"You'll go?"

Doubt isn't as satisfying as fury would be, but I'm not hungry for anyone's emotions except a certain wayward child's. And even then, while I may enjoy the predicaments she gets herself into, I can only allow her to go so far before stepping in.

"That's not the question you should be asking."

The question that should be asked is if I'll bring her home and _then_ kill her, or kill her right straightaway. It'd certainly make the trip home easier.

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**Author's Note**: Hi there. I'm rather new to the Hellsing fandom. I've watched the anime series and read through the first four manga. 

However, what I lack in manga, I've made up for by devouring fanfic and fan art. I'm fascinated by the concept of Alucard having some sort of fatherly role in a child's life. I mean, the man is clearly unstable. He's too sadistic. But he's also fascinated by the foibles of others. What in the world would any child who looked to him for guidance see in him and what would they receive from him? And what role would love play in the relationship and what form would it take?

Forgive any OOCness. Even if I had a good handle on the character (which I'm not sure I do) this entire little story of mine is extremely AU. That's also the reason I left direct parentage purposely vague and saw no reason to involve shippage since this father/child dynamic would be the center of the story with everything else happening almost peripherally.

Please, review. Flames will be ignored, but constructive criticism, advice, links to sites that might be helpful will all be read and considered thoughtfully.


	2. Part II

**Author's Note: **you know how it goes. When the story flows, it flows. Might as well work with it while it happens, right?

New POV this chapter.

**Disclaimer:** the one from last time still applies. I own the clothes on my back, about 50 pounds of school supplies, and not much else. Certainly not much of this, though I may just lay claim to our heroine.

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Hunger. 

Icy rain falls out of the night sky. There's no streetlights in this part of town, at least no working ones. The occasional headlight illuminates the silver sheets falling out of the sky, but no people. Folk in these neighborhoods know better than to let themselves be seen after dark and not just because I've been feeding in the shadows for the past week. Their skittish ways are long established from the look of things.

A trashcan rattles loudly somewhere behind me, its lid falling to the broken pavement. My ears pick up the splash. An unhappy cat yowls. A human curses under their breath.

_Dinner._

A man, drunk, unlikely to blame his wretched condition on anything other than a routine overindulgence in beer when he wakes to find himself in the gutter.

_Perfect._

I back up, phasing just enough to become part of the wall behind me. How _he_ would smirk and leer to see me now, reduced to stalking barflies to sate my hunger. Well, life before with its tidy little packs of donated blood hardly prepared me for this. I had to learn the hard way how to not draw attention to my presence. There's a lot that society is prepared to overlook, but a vampire leaving its citizens alive isn't one of them.

Funny how that is. One could start to believe they prefer dealing with ghouls than dressing a neck that's simply been…gnawed…on.

But then again, the living sue the State for not protecting them better and ghouls don't leave much of a mess behind when all is said and done.

Or at least they don't when dealt with properly.

Well, I'll get the knack of it eventually.

_"Daydreaming when you should be paying attention to your surroundings."_ The rogue thought has me ducking to avoid a blow that will never come. The movement leaves skin behind on the bricks. It stings. I think I would have preferred to have the thwap on the back of the head, but I'll probably never forget to keep my mind on phasing when I'm half-passed through a brick wall.

_Heh. "Half-passed." That's almost like half – _

-_drip-_

My woozy mind registers a difference in the sound. That one was me, not the rain. I've lost too much blood from the wound in my thigh. If only the drunk had been traveling with an equally drunken friend. Two men would have been enough. I don't know if I can keep myself from gorging on the one available and I'm running dangerously low on the pretty – pretty damn effective – silver bullets I swiped from HQ. I'd hate to use one to clean up after my meal.

_Focus, Darcie. Feed and move on._ The scent of the ancient blood spilling from my veins will call any predators within several city blocks to my side. I'm in no condition to fight. Never have been, I've learned.

_"Ask your mother."_

Damn him! How could that be all he ever had to say? I'm _his_! He's the one who had the final say in my upbringing. How could he have been so selfish, so concerned with creating emotional riptides in the undercurrents swamping the mansion when I was aching to be of some use to…

To him.

How could he have left me so defenseless?

_I was never defenseless until I left. He was always there._

_"Cats **pounce!"**_ Too late. The man has moved on. A door has opened. He's inside. Of course a closed door would never stop the great Alucard. _Nothing_ stops the great Alucard.

_So why hasn't he found me yet?_

I'm bleeding out in the street and all I can worry about is why I have to fend for myself? What's wrong with that picture?

Luckily drunks are in anything but short supply. One…two…three… I consider waylaying a fourth man but can't work up the energy. It was too difficult breaking off from the others after little more than a pint. I wouldn't be able to stop again and…

_And what? _

Again the sneer and the leer and the mocking eyes. The probing tendrils rasping against my mind and my nerves, milking every last drop of angst. I can almost feel it now, can almost see the flashing lenses in my mind that just ask to be shattered…

…did that once. While they were on his face. He was impressed. For all the wrong reasons and I didn't sleep for a week out of fear of retaliation, but it was still good fun…

…and I'm not ready to kill. Better to sleep, heal a little, and be on the move as soon as dusk falls. The hunger will be worse then but I'll have more time. More time to hide the evidence of my meals if killing is no longer avoidable.

_Oh god, if I kill a mortal I'll never be allowed to go back._ The pain of it ripples through me, stronger than the pain in my leg. My body suppressed that long ago but it can't save me from the pain caused by the thought of being hunted by those I count as family.

Well. I suppose feeding deeply from any one "donor" is out of the question.

The small hostel where I've tucked myself away is dingy and cold…cinderblock you know. There's no windows and my roommates are all idealistic college students backpacking across Europe in the off-season to save their meager funds for all-nighters in clubs. My torn and bloody clothes are disposed of easily enough though my body aches with weariness by the time I collapse on my cot. Weariness and bruises. After several months of poor feeding my body is slow to heal.

_Just be strong long enough to get well. I can't go home tired, starving, **and** wounded. He'd probably put me down for shaming him._

A small smile. A small lightening of my exhaustion.

Home…

Training – _real_ training – holds no appeal because it would come with his unrelenting presence. I never realized until I ran away how closely he watched me. I still don't know what he wanted to see. Perhaps whatever he _did_ see is the reason he always brushed off my requests to learn from him.

I never thought I'd disappointed him.


	3. Part III

**Author's Note: **the story is shaping up nicely in my opinion since I see where it ends now. That makes me happy.

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own any of this, and I make no profit except for kind reviews. Sadly, reviews will not pay the tuition.

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_Delicious… _

The ghetto reeks of uneasiness. The scent is old, one born of centuries of oppression and fear. If she's in this city, then she's either wandered these streets or will come to them eventually. This is the center of Prague's mystical heritage and the source of the world's best-known tales of golems.

_ "Tell me a story."_ I don't know why she came to me for stories. The only ones I know would have curled her already kinky hair. And she would have loved it. Fear itself never scared her. She'd trot after me, making a game of stepping on my shadow until I either gave in or allowed my real shadow to reach out and tweak her hair.

_"Once upon a time…"_ A gap-toothed grin revealing pointed canines just growing in. The spires in this city are reminiscent of her young delight.

_"…there was a little girl…"_ Why is it that every ten or fifteen years I get saddled with a new little girl? First my master and then the police-girl. Pesky little things, with their high-pitched screams and barely enough blood to count as a meal.

_"…who thought she knew all about monsters…"_ My little girl was no exception. She knew lots of monsters. But every single one was bound in one way or another, myself more than most. After all, this one was "my" little girl. It didn't matter that I'd had nothing to do with her creation – my blood still ran through her veins.

_"…until she met me."_

Red-streaked brown eyes that would meet mine without hesitation. _"Don't be silly. You're not a monster." _

No one knew what to make of my little girl, the one whose existence was supposed to be impossible. Not even I knew what to _do _with her, but I knew what to name her. _Of the darkness. _It was my right. When I named her I didn't want anyone to ever forget what she was – an unholy blending of human and vampire and science with sparkling eyes and a tendency to kill anything left in her care. Not that she'd purposely killed anything. She told me once that sometimes when she looked at things she heard a voice asking her, _"What would happen if…?"_ And how could she be expected to ignore such a valid question?

Her laughter, unselfconscious and slightly mad was unnerving in a child. It always lasted a second too long, stretching the humans' nerves just a bit too far. Her smile would always be a touch blood-thirsty once she calmed, her eyes a bit unfocused. In those moments it was clear to all what she had the potential to become. To me it was a beautiful vision of the future. Unfortunately other people saw the same thing but not in the same light.

After awhile she stopped laughing so freely.

I mocked her for it, baited her to break free of the expectations of her inferiors. Her lip would curl, her incisors would flash, and she'd walk away. I let her leave me behind in body, but I was always _there_! She had no reason to hare off on a wild goose chase based on fairy tales and fueled by pure stubbornness.

How she even remembered the existence of the golem project, I've no idea. It couldn't have been mentioned in her hearing since her infancy and all her intelligence aside, she shouldn't have been able to remember that.

_She doesn't remember anything. If she had she never would have tried to create a connection between freaks and golems in the first place._ We've all been watching her closely since she first became enthralled by the golem mythology. If she'd put one and one together…

_I'd know._

So she was still in the dark, but there was no telling how long she'd stay that way. Her theory, so close to truths that would reshape her world…

_The knowledge she seeks could tear her apart._

I won't have what's mine destroying itself out of what amounts to little more than shock. And she _is_ mine. She'd always been mine. It didn't matter than no one had ever intended her to be my daughter. _Fools_. They should have known I'd sense the moment my blood came to life and that I would come to claim it.

The air is restless. Storm systems rush past overhead, drawing new strength from the clouds they drag in their wake. The threatening rain will wash her scent from the air, making her trail that much harder to find.

I don't intend to spend another fruitless night hunting for her. I grow tired of spending the daylight hours pacing the floor with pointless concern. When you've lived as many centuries as I have, you grow to learn when a moment in time will not be changed by any force. However, that's no reason not to speed things towards their conclusion.

It doesn't matter that I can't sense her. The air will carry my message to her ears just as easily as my scent. I will no longer wait for her to return of her own will. Impossible child she might be, but she's bound to me just as I am bound to her.

"I grow tired of this game, my pretty. It's long past time you return to your sire."

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**A/N II: **I decided that Darcie's name is Alucard's attempt at humor as Darcie means "of the dark." So when he said he named her to make sure people remembered what she was, that's the reference. 


	4. Part IV

**Author's Note:** I always love it when I can build my vocabulary as I write. And since I revel in the joy of learning, I thought I'd share a bit of my research. It'll come in handy later in the chapter.

From merriam-webster – Main Entry: sympathetic vibration…Function: noun: a vibration produced in one body by the vibrations of exactly the same period in a neighboring body.

That's useful information for any band geeks out there. When turning timpani (kettle drums) the percussionist should hum the pitch they're seeking. When the drum head is tightened to that pitch, it rings. Same principle. I think.

**Disclaimer:** I own the dream of one day owning some sort of Hellsing merchandise. That's all.

* * *

_"I'll get you and your little dog too."_ Humor, I've found, is the only way to countermand his decrees. The times when I've tried to disobey his orders have been scarce – I've always been so eager to please that I'd listen the first time I was told. But for all that his command to return is a compulsion, so is the need to move forward. 

That's enough to make me pause where nothing else has. Answers to what is really a meaningless question – who _cares_ what freaks were intended to be? – shouldn't be this important. I shouldn't feel like a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing.

I shouldn't keep searching. The wound in my thigh still hasn't fully healed, and that after two days of rest. I'm quite literally on my last leg. I should go to him, let him baby me even as he takes a strip out of my hide with that sharp tongue of his for my reckless behavior. To keep pressing on is madness…

…though that's nothing new. It's not as if my family tree has ever bore perfect fruit. If I'm caught up in madness…

My indecision is my weakness. It's a struggle not to answer him directly. His voice rings in my ears; his will seeks to seduce my own. After so long an absence I want to fall into our familiar patterns. I _want_ to call back to him in a warped version of Marco Polo.

_"Ready or not, here I come…"_ I remember how it was when I was young, when my powers were simply commonplace rather than supernatural. To build up my strength we'd play "hide and seek." I'd race through the mansion using shadows as demented passageways, laughing uncontrollably as our powers met and clashed. His always sought to absorb mine and bring the game to an end by bringing me to his side.

For the game to work both players had to be incredibly attuned to each other and that sympathetic vibration still exists. One call from me is all it would take for him to be instantly at my side.

I'd be safe from the hunters I can feel tracking me.

I'd no longer have to feel this terrible hunger in my gut.

I could sleep without worry.

_ …and I wouldn't have my answers. _

Whispers.

_What would happen if…?_

This isn't right. If the answers I want exist, they're in a lab somewhere, not in a broken-down warehouse. One would think I'd absorbed enough pop culture to know that warehouses are good for nothing more than setting and springing traps.

_ But is it worth it? _

My hands curl into fists.

No. It's not. I back away from the darkness with unease. There's few times that I've felt scared of the dark, but this is one of them. I won't go down there by choice. This is over my head. It's time to stop being a child and ask for help.

"Oh, it's much too late for that."

The hair on my arms and neck stands up straight as the scent of undead blood and aggression reaches my nose. _I must be weaker than I thought._ The freaks that've been chasing me through the better part of central Europe have finally caught up with me. _If I'm weak enough for them to sneak up on me, would he even hear if I called to him?_

"Turn, girl. After the chase you've led us on we deserve a bit of amusement."

Besides insanity, bravado is the other thing that runs through my veins. "So few to feed my hunger?" Three freaks, ten ghouls. "That's hardly considerate."

"I see your leg is still giving you trouble." He looks so smug, so superior. I want to reach out and rip his jaw off. Only _one_ man is allowed to look at me like that and only because he really _is_ my better.

"I see you had to replace your little army." The shit-eating grin on my face feels wonderfully familiar. I never realized how comfortable fighting was until I had to fend for myself. The rhythms of it make as much sense to me as the rising and setting of the sun. I'm no longer hunted, even if I'm too weak to win this fight on my own. I am the hunter and I have a very big trap to spring, one that none of the walking dead before me will escape.

"You've always been too confident for a mere fledgling."

"Fledgling?" A sharp gust of wind ruins the effect I was going for. It's hard to be scornful as you're spitting hair out of your mouth. "Whoever sent you after me told you I was a _fledgling?_ You poor dears." I pull out my gun and remove the bullets from the magazine. I'd never be able to fire them fast enough manually.

"We all know whose blood flows in your veins."

_Idiot._ "Yes, well, be that as it may..." Four silver pellets rest in my palm. An unimpressive number; a harmless sight. I can hear their laughter as they watch me. Silver that rests harmlessly in a vampire's hand isn't worth much…unless that vampire has always been a little bit different from the rest of her kind.

"Enough stalling. Restrain her."

I back down the alley, watching the ghouls as they start forward. The rhythm of their movements is what will aid me in this fight. "I'd run now if I were you," I call to the freaks as their minions break into a charge.

Those tales of slow-motion near-death experiences are a load of crap. My reflexes are not; but even as I act to defend myself, more things are set in motion than I can track.

I force a stream of raw power through my palm as my arm snaps up. The skin burns and blisters, the bullets melt as they fly through the air.

_Head and heart. Head and heart._ Most of my mind is consumed with weaving bullets through dead flesh. The fringes of my mind register the growing power of an undead greater than myself. I start laughing with joy as dread rolls before his coming like thunder before a storm.

_Saved._

Then I feel something constrict around my ankle. The pressure alone isn't enough to break bone, yet the bones in my leg scream with pain.

In shock I collapse to the ground. How many moments have passed? Has it been more than a few seconds since the standoff ended? And I couldn't keep myself intact for that long?

_Alucard is not going to be happy about this._ Still, I can't help laughing. I won't be the only one to suffer his fury.


	5. Part V

**Author's Note:** this chapter kinda ran away with me. But it was needed to end the story. Well, all of it other than the epilogue.

**Disclaimer:** not mine. I may own the angst, but then again, it may be par for the course. In which case that's not mine either.

* * *

I haven't heard her laugh so freely in years. The unnaturalness of it doesn't seem to affect the freaks gathering close to her. It infuriates me to her kneeling at their feet, and she knows it. Her eyes and teeth glint in the darkness as she looks past them to me. 

"Someone's bit off more than they can chew," she laughs as she allows her shadows to spin the men around. Then she slams them into the dirty walls of the alley, shattering their bones. The immediate threat to her is neutralized even if her power, which makes the asphalt beneath her smoke, isn't enough to kill. The maggots will keep.

"You're hurting yourself unnecessarily."

"Am I?" She looks down at her hands and knees as she notices the smoke. She doesn't say anything, but I'm in her mind. I hear her sigh at the destruction of her clothes and the wounds that will pain her as soon as she starts to heal. Uneasiness clings to her like mud as she tries to find evidence of other injuries –

A shield slams down around her mind when she notices my presence. _God, you need a hobby. Stay out of my head. _

I've had children before, long ago, but none ever tested me the way she does.

"Get up."

_Crankypants. _

None were as disrespectful as her either. She obediently holds out her hands though, waiting for assistance. I cross my arms over my chest and stare her down. "When did you last feed?"

"Last night." She looks affronted.

"And how much?"

"…No more than usual." Her face grows strained as she feels my anger. "I couldn't risk killing a human."

It takes no more than a thought to toss one of the freaks to the ground before her, his body so broken that he resembles a misshapen blood bag. Which he is. All three glutted themselves tonight and they're hardly innocents, so she can eat a full meal.

She doesn't appreciate my thoughtfulness however. "Bringing me meals again I see." Her nose wrinkles in distaste. "He's not very clean, Aru."

She uses the name as some sort of talisman to get her way, but she's not eight anymore and unable to say my name properly.

"Eat."

The word holds a compulsion she's too weak to fight. I watch with satisfaction as she uses shadows to hold her prey still; the parasite's screams as her fangs piece him are beautiful to listen to. The pain she inflicts is not that of a vampire bent on revenge, it's that of a being created to be a vampire's natural enemy. Her nails, her teeth, the hair that shimmers in the faint light… It's the pain of blessed silver that's eating away at her meal.

My little girl who sees better in the dark than she does in the light.

As an infant she always slept through the day and was active during the night.

When she hit puberty she developed strange glands just under her tongue. The Hellsing doctors determined they functioned like venom sacs though they held nothing more dangerous than water.

I've seen the records. Priests blessed every stage of her development; that _water _is more dangerous than anything that comes out of the tap. My little girl was created for one purpose, and purpose only, and that was to hunt –

_Aru? _

– me. All other vampires she might destroy were thought of as fringe benefits, but she was created to silence _me_. However, they made two mistakes. They underestimated the strength of the blood bond they created and they ran into the same problem the great Jehovah did. In seeking to create a creature with a soul they created a being with free-will…one capable of rebellion against her creators. Even if I had never come for her she wouldn't have been able to hurt me.

"Aru? I'm finished."

"Get up."

"My leg feels funny. I need help."

Her words pull me back from the past. She's scared of my anger and her own weakness. The repercussions of running away from home are occurring to her in Technicolor splendor. She's right to be scared; once we get home she'll train so hard she'll wish she died here. We are _not_ going to have a repeat of the last eight months. The next time she decides to strike out on her own she is damn well going to be able to take care of herself.

This time I take her by the wrists when she offers her hands. The pain inflicted from grasping her burnt palms would serve to reinforce the lesson she's had, but I –

I lurch, unprepared for the way her body slumps into mine. I'm equally unprepared for the flood of panic that emanates from her with enough strength to move my hair.

"I can't –"

" – feel your leg." There's no need to look down when I can pluck the information from her mind. I see the silver cuff, relive the pain that seemed to bite into bone itself. She doesn't know who used the weapon, but she's not the only witness here. One of the two worms remaining will tell me what I want to know.

I chose the one whose mind is laughing while blood bubbles in his lungs.

I see the human who gave him the cuff.

I see the ring of needles lining the inside and know of the liquid held within.

I hear the account of the tests that were held, the bitterness of waiting nearly two decades to undo what never should have been done. The men who thought they could create their own savior from vampire-kind are dead, killed to hide their failure.

My little girl's fate was sealed the moment she strayed out from underneath Hellsing's watchful eye, for what use is a slayer who refuses to attack the greatest vampire of them all?

She's numb to the hip. The serum the cuff carried was injected directly into her marrow. In a half an hour – or a little less – the serum will reach her brainstem where it will unravel her nervous system. The agony of it will last twenty minutes…or a little more.

There is no antidote, for who would wish to save a –

"No." Her eyes and voice are dull. Bond aside, she was never adept at traipsing through my mind. Exercising her powers these last months seems to have changed that. "You're wrong."

My shadows leave me as rats, scurrying over to gnaw her leavings to a slow, painful death. I'll personally send them to hell if there's enough of them left...

…after.

Her hands tighten until she holds fistfuls of my clothing. "It's not me."

She doesn't deny her death. Death is too ordinary to scare her. She denies the conversation she eavesdropped on, one that occurred hours before her birth.

_"Alucard. We need to talk." If my master is stooping to such niceties, then the subject she wishes to raise is an uncomfortable one for her. "That freak who stole your blood last year? We've learned why he wanted it." _

_ "Discovering why a freak wanted my blood was worth investigating?" Things have been slow, but not that slow. _

_ She gives me a folder. _

_ I read it. _

_ "Needless to say, they must be stopped."_

"What were golems created to do, girl-child?"

She can't speak. Her heart is racing too fast, her lungs not drawing enough air. _To defend the innocent against persecution. _

_ And? _

_ …and the righteous against evil. _ "But you're not evil."

Only my little girl would say that when she can feel the urge to slaughter that's running through my veins. But leaving her would mean allowing her to die alone. It would mean hearing her screams of anguish mingle with the screams of my prey until every scream for years to come would remind me of this moment.

We stand in silence. I feel the death of her body as she does; the lack of sensation at the base of her spine, the numbness spreading down her other leg. Her heart still races, but the rhythm is ungainly.

_ You're not evil. I love you. _

_ I know you do._

She can't support herself any longer. As the ruined screams of her one-time pursuers don't seem to bother her, I sink down onto the ground and pull her into my embrace. I feel her flash of memory, of being young and scared by nightmares. She would race into my underground cell and pound on my coffin lid if I were inside until either it opened or she was pulled through it.

She feels the memory I share with her in return. We were already inside the compound the night she was born. I remember my lungs aching as they took a breath for the first time in years. Her screams of fury, her feelings of abandonment as she became aware of the world around her led me to where they hoped to keep her. Her cries stopped the instant I entered the room, and though newborns can't see she instinctively turned towards me.

I carried her out of the chaos of battle wrapped tightly in my coat. It was the last time I held her until she was old enough to demand it. This is the first time I've held her since she was old enough to stop.

The numbness has reached her back. She doesn't have much time left. Even knowing that I can't tell her what she wants to hear.

I know she loves me despite the fact that I've never said the words back to her. Despite the fact that even now I won't repeat them.

"You can make it not hurt."

Her body is colder than I've ever felt it.

"I don't want pain to be the last thing I remember, Aru."

Never "Dad." Never "Papa." Never "Father."

She's mine but I've never been a father to her.

"Please?"

It's the kills that are memorable, not the faces. The sheer quantity of beings I've killed prevents that. But the blood is a weight. And killing her? I wouldn't be able to spill enough blood to ever forget her face.

And standing by as she died in agony and fear would allow me to forget her?

The tight grip she has on my clothes loosens as her hands lose sensation.

Her skull seems so small as I cup it in my hand. Her breath is warm on my neck as it escapes her in little puffs. The scent of her blood is intoxicating, the perfect bait for the trap she represents.

My shadows travel into her body, choking her vessels and veins. There's no change at first. I don't want to alarm her. Don't want to scare her. My eyes stare sightlessly ahead of me as I listen to her thoughts. They grow confused…foggy…slow…

_Aru?_ The darkness doesn't scare her. She calls out simply to make sure it's alright to travel further into it.

I don't look at her. I don't try to capture a final moment, a final image of her face. I just sit and stare straight ahead as the burden in the arms cools and grows lighter until finally there's nothing left to hold.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Damn the priests and their dogma.

Hours pass before I stand. My pets left me more than enough to exact revenge.

Though the screams stop when their vocal chords are worn through, the torment goes on much longer than that.

And then I loosen the noose on my power and _truly_ express myself.

* * *

**Author's Note:** epilogue to follow. 


	6. Part VI Epilogue

**Author's Note:** if you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me through all this. It's been interesting to write outside my usual fandoms.

**Disclaimer: **I return all characters to Kouta Hirano, none the worse for wear.

* * *

**_Alucard!_ **

I can't ignore my master's summons any longer. I've been away too long as it is. The "extended leave" I took to find the ones responsible for…

I can't think about that. Master would be…unhappy…if I entered her sanctum in my current state.

I phase into her office and take my customary seat before she can offer it. I don't give a shit if it upsets her. As quick as her temper may be, she'll never know the hell I've been in.

"You called…Master?" The sneer in my voice is more for her trivial concerns than for her. So what if the fire in Prague took two weeks to completely extinguish? Or that several prominent scientists connected to the Iscariot organization were found skinned and impaled? Or that the freak problem here in England has escalated in my absence?

"Report." The word is ground out through tight lips and around that ever-present cigar.

"Targets silenced. No survivors."

"What the _hell_ does that mean?"

"Do you know how one destroys a golem, my master?"

_ "Alucard…" _

Once her impatience would have been delightful. Now it's…frustrating. Stupid mortal girl. "Each one has a word written on their foreheads. 'Emet,' the Hebrew word for truth. When a rabbi wished to dispose of his earthy servant, he erased the 'E,' leaving behind the word 'Met,' or 'death.'"

An inkling of comprehension reaches her eyes. She's uneasy now. "I assumed," she says slowly, "that you contacted Dr. Meir because Darcie was injured…" She trails off as my eyes start to blaze. "Alucard, I'm sorry."

"For what, my master?" Fear, that's more satisfying. My all-knowing master isn't sure what I'll do in this state.

"When did she pass?"

"Ah, the good Dr. Meir. You know, I never sent her a thank you note for informing us of the golem project. She's alive and well. You should know. She works for you."

"You know that's not who I meant." If we both know that, there's no point in replying. "And Dr. Meir has disappeared. If you had nothing to do –"

"Of course I had something to do with it." I rise to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"This conversation bores me as everything else does. Fortunately the malady will be remedied in a few months."

Her thoughts are easy to hear even though I'm not in the room any longer. _A few months…? He didn't… He **wouldn't…** _

Her outrage is no concern of mine. It won't be allowed to get in the way of what I want. After all, what kind of father would I be if I let my little girl die?


End file.
